Gamel Woolsey
Gamel Woolsey (May 28, 1895 - January 18, 1968)http://www.andalucia.com/cities/malaga/english-cemetery/cemetery-residents.htm was an American poet and novelist. Life Family She was born on the Breeze Hill plantation in Aiken, South Carolina, as Elizabeth (Elsa) Gammell Woolsey, but in later years took her middle name (which she shortened to "Gamel," a Norse word meaning "old"). Her father was plantation owner William Walton Woolsey (1842–1909). The Woolsey branch of the New England Dwight family had influence in the law, the church and education. William had married Catherine Buckingham Convers, daughter of Charles Cleveland Convers, but she died in 1888. His sister, Sarah Chauncey Woolsey – better known by her pen name, Susan Coolidge – wrote the popular Katy series and other children's fiction. Her relations included 3 presidents of Yale University. Her mother was her father's 2nd wife, Bessie (Gammell), daughter of William A. Gammell. Her mother traced her maternal ancestry to William Washington. Youth and education After William Woolsey's death in 1910, his wife and daughter moved to Charleston, where Gamel went to day school. Career Despite weak health following an attack of tuberculosis in 1915, she left home for New York in about 1921, hoping to be an actress or a writer. Her earliest known published poem appeared in the New York Evening Post in 1922. In 1923 she met and married (on April 2) Rex Hunter, a writer and journalist from New Zealand, but they separated after 4 years, although they never divorced. (Her posthumously published 1987 novel, One Way of Love, is said to be a semi-autobiographical account of their marriage.) Hunter also did some acting in these years with Woolsey at Woodstock. In 1927, he and Woolsey visited England. In 1927, while living in Patchin Place, Greenwich Village, Woolsey met writer John Cowper Powys and, through him, his brother Llewelyn, and his wife, Alyse Gregory. She and Alyse became friends for life, while with Llewelyn she had a passionate and painful love affair. She left New York for England in 1929, settling in Dorset to be near Llewelyn, where she came to know the whole Powys family and their circle. Parting from Llewelyn in 1930, she married historian and writer Gerald Brenan in a private ceremony, and they lived together, mainly in Spain, until her death.The Queen of Spain's Literary Past The Olive Press, October 15, 2007. Retrieved February 11, 2013. In 1933 she began an enduring friendship with Bertrand Russell, who wanted to marry her. She died in Spain in 1968 of cancer, and is buried at the English Cemetery, Malaga. Writing Woolsey, primarily a poet, published very little in her lifetime: Middle Earth, a collection of 36 poems, came out in 1931, Death's Other Kingdom in 1939, and Spanish Fairy Stories in 1944. Her Collected Poems have been published since her death. Patterns on the Sand (published by The Sundial Press in 2012) recalls her South Carolina childhood; One Way of Love, accepted by Gollancz in 1930 but suppressed at the last minute because of its sexual explicitness, was published by Virago Press in 1987. Publications Poetry *''Middle Earth: Poems''. London: Grant Richards, 1931. *''Twenty-eight Sonnets''. North Walsham, Norfolk, UK: Warren House Press, 1977. *''Last Leaf Falls''. North Walsham, Norfolk, UK: Warren House Press, 1978. *''The Search for Demeter''. North Walsham, Norfolk, UK: Warren House Press, 1980. *''Collected Poems''. North Walsham, Norfolk, UK: Warren House Press, 1984. Novels *''One Way of Love''. London: Virago, 1987. *''Patterns on the Sand''. Sherborne, Dorset, UK: Sundial Press, 2012. Non-fiction *''Death's Other Kingdom'' (autobiography). London & New York: Longmans Green, 1939. **''Death's Other Kingdom: A Spanish village in 1936'' (edited by Michael Jacobs). London: Eland, 2012. *''Malaga Burning: An American woman's eyewitness account of the Spanish Civil War''. Reston, VA: Pythia Press, 1998. Translated *''Spanish Fairy Stories'' (illustrated by Vicenc Fisas Armengol). London & New York: Transatlantic Arts, 1944. Letters *''The Letters of Gamel Woolsey to Llewelyn Powys, 1930-1939'' (edited by Kenneth Hopkins). North Walsham, Norfolk, UK: Warren House Press, 1983. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Gamel Woolsey, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Apr. 13, 2012. See also *List of U.S. poets References External links ;Poems *Sonnet by Gamel Woolsey *"I Can Still Remember the Sun" ;Books *Gamel Woolsey at Amazon.com ;About *Woolsey, Gamel (1895-1968) at Powys-Lannion.net. *Gamel Woolsey at Lost Magazine *Gamel Woolsey: Eyewitness to the Spanish Civil War at Zalin Grant's War Tales *Gamel Woolsey and Bertrand Russell by Kenneth Hopkins *Patterns on the Sand at the Sundial Press *[http://southernlitreview.com/reviews/patterns-on-the-sand-by-gamel-woolsey.htm review of Patterns on the Sand] at the Southern Literary Review *Woolsey novel published in the UK after more than 75 years at ReadSC. Category:1895 births Category:1968 deaths Category:20th-century American novelists Category:American women novelists Category:American women poets Category:Burials in Málaga Category:Cancer deaths in Spain Category:People from Aiken County, South Carolina Category:Women writers from South Carolina Category:20th-century poets Category:20th-century women writers Category:American women writers Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Women poets Category:American poets